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Christopher_Ba1
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Aug 26, 2016

What tools are people using for bulk management of LTM and GTM?

What tools, if any, are people using for mass management of LTM virtual servers and pools and GTM virtual servers, pools, and wide ips?

 

I'm asking because I was asked to make 18 internal (staging) websites available to the internet temporarily for user testing and for penetration testing.

 

18 web apps doesnt sound like a lot, especially when the web apps are already created on the LTM side and they just need to be set up on the GTM side, but when you break it down it adds up to a fair bit of work:

 

18 sites: x 2 data centers create 2 GTM virtual servers per data center per site (http, https) and map the public ip, service port, and translated ip to each one. Create 1 GTM pool per data center per site and add the 2 virtual servers Create 1 wide ip at each data centre and add the two pools for each datacentre.

 

all the while keeping naming consistent, mapping the right IPs to the virtual servers, mapping the right virtual servers to the pools, and mapping the right pools to the wide ips.

 

its a lot of work, and prone to mistake. And then I have to create a firewall policy to allow the traffic in, and create NATs from the public ips to the dmz ips.

 

I know Enterprise Manager exists, dont know exactly what it does or can do, and having a bit of trouble finding a trial download of it. Are there any other tools people are using to ease the monotony of doing these tasks?

 

2 Replies

  • I found that Enterprise Manager can be downloaded from the downloads section.

     

    I've also learned about iWorkflow. Both look like they might help. But need to spin each up in a new virtual machines, cant install on my local desktop to try them out.

     

  • I think I probably have to look at this objectively, is this going to be an ever changing environment where little tweaks are made almost constantly ?

     

    Or a one time effort + setup + forget ?

     

    There are several tools out there, but it depends on how much you want to spend. Big-IQ, Cisco ACI etc etc.